Little Things
by infiniteworld8
Summary: Kim is filling the shoes of a dead man...and he doesn't feel like he's doing a very good job. Post Deadlock


The _Voyager_ that he's on is supposed to be exactly the same...a replica...but it's the little things that made all the difference. The bulkheads were the same, the Ops controls were identical but some things weren't. He knew he should feel eternally grateful that out of all the people who died on his ship (his _Voyage_ r he can't help thinking) he was one of the two people spared.

And yet he can't help but feel something a lot more. The other _Voyager's_ crew doesn't get it. They seem to brush it all off too quick. He wishes he could shout at somebody..anybody really, that he is not Harry Kim. At least not their Harry Kim. He feels like the only mourner at a poorly attended funeral and he actually is. There's a memorial service for the people who died...on the _Voyager_ he's on now. His deceased counterpart from this ship isn't mentioned. The captain told him earlier that she'd like to avoid talking about that with the rest of the crew since they already had enough to deal with and she felt them not knowing would help him fit in.

Except that's even more wrong. Now he's got not just a whole ship full of his dead crewmates to mourn but also another version of himself that has died and yet will probably never be remembered except for the few people who knew it happened.

Kim is filling the shoes of a dead man...and he doesn't feel like he's doing a very good job. Paris cracks jokes with him, tries to get him to go out on dates with the latest group he's set up for them, and while sometimes he plays along, others he just walks away wondering how all this can be. This Paris is talking behind him but his Paris he remembers lying cold and pale on the decking gutted like an animal.

Even the captain is different...he knows they are supposed to be exact replicas but they are only similar. Because his captain would have never just brushed off his experiences with being one of only two survivors of a dead crew with it all being a part of being a Starfleet officer. His Captain would have recognised how hard it was to fit in when everything was the same and yet so different. His Captain would have recognised the pervasive guilty confusion, anger that he has at being saved and yet still having a part of him die in some way.

The only thing he has from before except himself is Naomi Wildman and while she's a baby at least she's something from before and not this facsimile...or is it the original...of what is/was/used to be his life?

He finds excuses to catch her mother in the corridors just so he can hold the baby. By the expression on the woman's face he knows she finds his repeated requests odd but she at least has the grace to grant him that one solace. She doesn't understand and she's not trying to. Her baby died and in her mind she has basically the same one back. But just like the rest of them she's missing the key point. The baby she's holding in her arms gazing into its eyes is not hers. It's the baby of another woman identical in body but now he's beginning to realize probably not mind.

Paris makes jokes about things Kim's sure they have never experienced together. Holo programs they've visited, away mission's they've gone on, foods they've eaten. The man's not lying...he's just talking about a different Kim.

 _They are similar but not identical._

This Captain Janeway is more forceful, less mothering than she was on his Voyager.

This Nelix seasons different dishes with more or less spices then his.

Everywhere he turns there is some difference...small or large...and he's the only one that ever knows. Once in a moment of desperation he tries to point it out to Tuvok. Instead of understanding the Vulcan raises an eyebrow and begins a long lecture on quantum physics. Kim walks away in disgust. People aren't made up of just molecules...they must have a soul or something similar too. Because while as far as he can tell the people on Voyager are molecularly identical their wants dislikes, loves, hates...all those little things that make up a person are different.

He's living in a crew of strangers...and while they may one day get home...

He's not sure if it'll be _his_ home.


End file.
